Are We Freaking Out Yet?

Be Still...

Be Still...

Be Still...

Listen, Love, Laugh, Repeat.

I have never been on a roller coaster quite like this one, and those who have known us for years know we have been on many different coasters.  Some have had big dips, fast turns, and flipped us upside down.  NONE have blazed right on by the exit and kept going, and going, and going like this has!

I may not be freaking out yet, but at moments I am wondering how I have managed not to!

This family is crazy, we knew it all along, but this year is proving it.

Let's pick up where we last left off, shall we?? Haha!

Final Braces Appointment!

Since I last blogged, we have had two kids get braces off (Kenny and Matt), one of those kids learn that, sadly, due to 10 years in braces, malnutrition and a host of other reasons, he was indeed going to lose his two upper front teeth in addition to the one he already lost next to it.  This was a real blow for Kenny, who is going to need to get implants but this process will include far more bone grafting than we thought, and walking around for MONTHS without his three upper teeth as grafts heal, then posts are put in and allowed to heal.  This is really bothering him, as it would anyone, and the timing couldn't be worse as he is moving toward graduation and the future business while contemplating how he can present well with all of that going on in his mouth.

Before the post-braces dentist trip and bad news...

While Olesya, Kenny, Angie and I headed off to California to visit my mom and then head off to Las Vegas for the International Pizza Expo, Josh participated in  his final basketball games of the season, and also earned 3rd place for team shooting with his shooting club:

Matthew was accepted as a camp counselor at TWO different church camps, one for the majority of the summer which is called Rainbow Trail and is associated with our current Lutheran (ELCA) denomination.  He had a 45 minute interview and was quite impressed with the level of spiritual questions he was asked and feels it will be a true period of growth for him.  He is really enjoying the college aged group our church has put together and is looking forward to being a counselor again at La Foret, his years long summer camp, as well.  In between he will be gone 2 1/2 weeks with his amazing trip to The Netherlands through Civil Air Patrol, so everyone is teasing him that we won't see him all summer...which is true!

On the pizza...

My mom was not doing well when we visited, but thankfully it sounds as if she has improved considerably.  We sat and visited around her, as she wasn't really able to converse with us much as she was on heavy medications and battling a  infection.  We spent time with Dominick's mom as well, then it was off to Las Vegas for some heavy duty learning for Buckaroos!

This show was incredible and had everything under the sun we might need!  There were 1500 booths, tens of thousands of people, and it was an event like none other.

There were tons of classes to take to learn about the industry...

They were eager to get moving as the doors opened!

We were very fortunate to have Candi join us to help me keep the kids on track and from becoming too overwhelmed.  This was business, we had a lot of equipment to look at, pizza products to try, and we needed everyone's heads in the game.  With a venue this large Kenny tends to shut down, and having an extra adult brain around helped significantly to keep this a deep and rich learning experience.

Ready to eat pizza for two solid days! Angie and Kenny were in 7th Heaven!

We walked, we talked, we ate, we planned, we priced, we got scared, we encouraged to face the fear, we learned and learned and learned...

Is it ok if I admit that personally, I tried enough samples there to never, ever want to look at pizza again?  Even trying to eat the smallest portions, it was pizza...pizza...pizza.

And honestly, no, they are not all the same. 

And yes, we came away with real knowledge and preferences.

Kenny has been our oven researcher spending hours and hours researching the very best options.  We were blessed...and I do mean blessed...to find one far better than we could ever afford new on Ebay, which we purchased a couple months ago for 1/3rd the cost and it is ENORMOUS, similar to the one in this photo.

While there were many wonderful things to come out of this experience, perhaps the single best one was the confidence that was developed in all three.  They each attended a class, and returned absolutely shocked at what many of the attendees didn't know about business in general.  They explained that they knew basically everything the presenters were trying to teach...like what is your mission and why are you in business, how to do food cost break downs, how to calculate profit and expenses, how to be connected with your customers and develop real relationships with them.  As they wandered the show and saw hundreds of business owners, they listened in and realized they knew far more than they had realized, and our months of hard work are paying off.  They were able to envision actually running the business far more than they could prior!!  I was thanked multiple times for teaching them so well, and the excitement was palpable as they all began to grab hold of Buckaroos as their business.  That was worth the price of admission right there!

We saw some silly things as well...

Pizza cars...

Pizza suits!

Then things got serious the second day, when we were researching our POS (Point of Sale...cash register) system.  This was one of the more expensive purchases they would be making, and one of the most important and difficult to consider.  It needed to be intuitive to kids for whom tech isn't always intuitive (Olesya is surprisingly quite good at tech!) and for future employees to have as simple and easy a system to operate.  We talked with our new friend, Eddie, the salesman for a system called Thr!ve (Yes it is spelled that way!):

This gentleman was SO helpful and courteous, speaking directly to the kids respectfully, answering their questions, encouraging them to hop on and try it out.  Kenny is our most challenged with technology, and this was at the end of Day 1, when he was really admittedly on overload and he said, "Well, if I can manage it now, then that will simulate a bad brain day at work for me!"  What do you know, he entered a pretend order with ease!  That pretty much sold us!  We looked at every other system at the show, perhaps 6 or 7...none of them had the features we were looking for at an affordable price that were as intuitive.  We spent the evening discussing the pros and cons of the system, and ultimately decided to return the next day to put a down payment on it.  I was enormously proud of Angie for stepping up and asking what they might do for us if we actually put that money down today...did they have any show deals or would they offer us something in return?  Just like her dad!  And guess what? THEY DID!  Haha!  She negotiated a $500 discount for a mobile app for our customers!  

We made all kinds of important discoveries and hashed out decisions while we were there, and one was perhaps adding to our menu...an Italian Roast Beef Sandwich!  This was DA BOMB!! Oh my gosh, Kenny called me over to sample it, and having had the real deal in Dominick's decidedly Italian-From-Chicago family, there was no doubt, this was the single best most authentic Italian Beef sandwich I had eaten in years!  Oh man, it was SO good!  Kenny was enjoying it so much their reps asked to take his pic and put it on their Facebook page :-)

We all needed this...concrete...touching...seeing...tasting...discussing.  It changed everything.  Kenny, who feels the most inept in the kitchen, came away saying he thought he could actually do this after all!  The girls were understanding things on a new level as well.  There was such positive energy, so much hope!  My heart was full, maybe as full as my tummy was!! HAHA!

We came home and there was more physical labor to be done.  Things are slowly starting to happen, contractors are being lined up; plumbers, electricians, concrete work and more.

Angie is showing off her handy work...she did the drywall work for two areas!!

Concrete cutting ready to begin for plumbing lines...

 

Tomorrow the kids are going to jack hammer and haul away all the concrete between the lines for a trench for the plumbing...this will be a lot of work!

No, we are not freaking out yet, but we could be.  God has shown up in BIG WAYS this week, which I will share in my next blog post, which actually kept my personal Freak Out at bay, because trust me, it is there, beneath the surface.  We are diving in solely on faith. If this works, it will all be worth it but it will tap us for a long time to come.  We will keep moving forward and God keeps sending 2x4's every time I get too nervous.  When will I learn to trust?  It's the hardest thing to do ever.

Buckaroos is moving along, Matt and Josh are helping in all kinds of ways and doing their thing as well.  Life is good.  Exhausting, oh man, exhausting...but good.